I’m basically a novice having built one layout and currently planning another. While I’m an avid reader of things about model railroading, I admit I usually skip or skim over articles about operations.
However, lately I’ve started to become interested in freight operations. I think I somewhat understand prototype operations in general, i.e. an engine picks up loaded cars from one place and delivers them to another to be unloaded, and, in some cases the empty cars have to be returned. I know there are millions of other details, but what I don’t know is this: (try not to laugh) do model railroaders usually remove the loads from open cars such as flats, hoppers, gondolas, etc. when the empties are being returned, or do they just pretend like they’re empty? With closed car such as tank cars and box cars the probelm wouldn’t seem to exist.
Another question. At one time remote throttles were not very common and a lot of people did not use remote controlled turnouts. In such cases, for example, would the operator move the loco to a point near the turnout for the siding which held the car(s) to be picked up, then walk over to that area and throw the turnout, then go back to the throttle, back up the engine to couple the cars, pull the train out onto the main and stop it, go back to the turnout and throw the swith again, then back to the throttle to continue down the main? And then repeat the process when the train reached the drop off point? If so, it seems like a lot of waking back and forth.
I realize DCC and remote controlled turnouts can obviate these problems (and that’s what I plan to use), but I’m just curious how things were done in the “old days.” BTW, on my layout there are very few turnouts and they are all right in front of the power pack, but it’s a very small layout. Thanks.
I can’t speak for model railroaders as a class, but this is what I’ve provided for:
Loaded car routed to staging on a local freight - loaded aboard a cassette and removed from the layout (it’s on its way to ???) Loaded cars in cassettes may be unloaded (all live coal and log loads, plus others,) or be left alone for later re-use. Empty cars in cassettes may be loaded or left empty. How these decisions are reached involves a system too complex and layout-specific to bother with a description.
Empty flats and gons spotted at the log transload and sawmill are loaded by “magic.” Sometime around oh-dark-hundred, when all the little people are sleeping, a giant hand descends from the sky and suddenly all the empty cars are loaded and ready for pickup.
Cars spotted with loads are mysteriously converted to empties at about the same time.
Empty hoppers and gons delivered to the larger colliery are live-loaded with coal for delivery off-line.
Unit coal trains are part of an ‘empties in, loads out’ arrangement. They are not actually loaded/emptied.
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Another question. At one time remote throttles were not very common and a lot of people did not use remote controlled turnouts. In such cases, for example, w
First off, I am by NO stretch of the imagination an “expert” regarding operations. I can however shed some light on your questions and perhaps steer you to wonderful information.
If you are really wanting to get into operations and “do it right”…or so to say, the best place to start compiling knowledge is getting a copy and reading Rights of Trains by Peter Josserand. This IS very heavy stuff, but is most likely the only book you will need!
The other place to go, and its fun too boot, is to get in contact with and join the Operations SIG. Sorry, I don’t have an address off the top of my head, but I would think that a browse of the NMRA web site could get you to the SIG.
As for loads in, loads out, empties in and out: I don’t actually load and unload, but I do have loads and empties that I fiddle. Sometime trains are set in staging and other times on my point to point routes they get the digital (ten fingers) fiddling right on the spot.
And lastly: When it comes to walk around control, all my trains are operated as though proto. My roads don’t have CTC (only train orders, mostly by radio) so even though I may be able to control a turnout by remote and have the route lined as the train approaches…The train needs to come to that point and stop, the brakeman needs to throw the turnout, the train proceeds and stops again, and if needed the turnout is thrown again…It just makes it all the more fun.
I have a personal layout but I’m a member of a modular club that has no permanent layout, so when it’s my turn to host a meeting I usually, but not always, have things set up for an operating session before the group arrives. Mind you my layout isn’t that large, the mainline being about 85 feet with around 13 ‘industries’ to be served. I’m in HO scale and I use the car card/waybill system. My yard consists of 4 tracks and is double ended. In advance I set up two trains in the yard, an Eastbound and a Westbound, and I have the paperwork for these trains already done before the session begins. The guys pick their train of choice and there are two members of each ‘crew’, and engineer and his switchman that handles turnouts and coupling/uncoupling. Most ‘loads’ come back to the yard but at times they’re delivered to another ‘industry’. As far as simulating loaded/unloaded cars, the only thing I do is remove the ‘coal’ from the empties that are to be delivered to the coal mine. Of course, the loaded ones sitting at the coal mine to be picked up have their loads. As for open cars such as flats, I usually have an empty flat already sitting on the spur at an industry/business and a flat with some some type load on it already in the train to deliver to that business.
Pretty simple and straight forward.
An operating session will usually last about 45 minutes, more or less depending on coffee breaks etc. Sometimes I’ll have a train out on the layout somewhere, before the session begins, and as things get underway and the yard is cleared of trains, that train is brought into the yard by a third engineer and parked on the receiving track. A fourth engineer will then begin working with a switch engine, breaking the train into two trains, one east and one westbound and as the original two engineers bring their respective trains to the yard, the two new trains are pulled out by two ’
I’ve always had relatively small layouts, so back in the “stationery power pack” days, I never had too far to go. I also really didn’t experiment with more formal operations until I wired in the DCC. It really does simplify everything, especially when I’m up there goofing off by myself.
The added flexibility has encouraged me to further expand the layout, with plans for more rolling around in my head.
As for loads, I run a lot of coal operations, and have a large number of hoppers. The cars that end up getting spotted at the mine tipples come in empty, and at some point between sessions, I put the loads back in them. I have a few flat cars with loads that also get changed out. I do all of that between sessions so there’s not a lot of delays while we fool around with handling the cars.
For me it’s easier to remember where a train is supposed to be going and what it’s supposed to be doing if they’re empty or loaded.
Welcome to the wonderful world of operations. Operations provide a purpose or organization to the movement of cars and trains. There are two aspects to “operations”, how you direct the movement of the cars across the railroad and how you authorize trains to move on teh main track. They are two completely separate activities. That means you can learn and implement them separately, which is a good thing.
The general “life cycle” of a shipment is that an industry produces something that needs to be moved. The shipper requests a car to be spotted, the railroad locates a car and spots it. The car is loaded and then a “waybill” (which includes movement instructions) is generated. The railroad moves the car and places it at the reciever (consignee). The consignee unloads the car and releases it empty, the railroad pulls the empty and moves the empty to another load or returns it back to its home location.
You don’t have to include this entire process on your railroad. You can split the cycle in half if you have “staging”. If an industry generates loads (a mine), then it can order cars in to be spotted, then load the cars and ship the loads out. You don’t have to be real specific about where the empty came from or where the load goes to. If your industry recieves loads inbound (a power plant) you can have the loads come in, be spotted and then return empty. You don’t have to be real specific about where the loads came from or where the empties go back. As you gain experience you can make the “off layout” movements more detailed (low de
I personally model N scale and my layout isn’t large enough for structured operations.
Monthly, I participate in operating sessions on two large layouts, one HO and one N scale.
The HO layout is reset between operating sessions and is run exactly the same way each time, the owner’s preference.
The N scale layout takes up an entire two car garage and is run with two sets of switch lists. The “A” set of switch lists are used during one operating session and the “B” set is used during the next session. Each set moves cars on the layout and the other resets the cars. This method seems more realistic as the cars are moved from industries to staging and vis versa during each session, swapping what had been set out in the previous session.
During operating sessions, several unit trains are moved to a steel mill module and unloaded, then returned to staging. We made resin loads for the hopper cars and put cotter pins in the mold, pouring the resin over them. This allows us to use a magnet, mounted on a stick to lift the loads from the cars through a removeable walls on the dump buildings.
The vents on the dump building wall are used to remove the wall once the locomotives pass through. The tool can be seen on the facia and the plastic trough for the removed loads. Both coal and taconite loads are removed during each operating session, the taconite dump is the smaller building on the left. Between operating sessions, the loads are put back in the cars in staging.
The steel mill module gets most of the action, with regard to loading and unloading of cars. Gondolas with scrap loads are move to the oxygen furnace, the empties(having had the loads removed between sessions)are moved to a small staging area adjacent to the mill and loaded with I beams or coil loads for forwarding to other industries
I like operations, mostly my ops that require switching or other things are a slow paced local, the loads are removed by hand between sessions when I rotate the waybills.
The Operations SIG’s web site is at http://www.opsig.org . One of the neat things they can do is to help you find others in your area who are into operations.
One very important thing to know about the term “operations” is that it means different things to different people, and that there are many different ways of approaching the subject. Of the three layouts I operate on most regularly, each owner approaches prototypical operation with different degrees of rigor. The types of paperwork vary, and the degree of seriousness, too, but they all have come up with ways of operating that are both interesting and fun.
A group of guys I run trains with got together a number of years ago and created the Operations Road Show layout. It is a large, semi-portable layout designed to be used to teach operation under timetable and train order rules using a card/waybill system. By semi-portable, I mean that it is designed so that it can be taken down and moved to NMRA National Conventions to be used to run hands-on clinics during the week.
We have taken it Conventions in Toronto (2003), Cincinnati (2005) and Detroit (2007), and we hold operating sessions on it at its home base near Ann Arbor, Michigan 12-15 times per year. The next National Convention we expect to take it to will be in Milwaukee in 2010. Given that a number of our team members will likely be involved in hosting the 2012 National Convention in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I’m not certain what we will do for that one.
